


faith

by ninemoons42



Series: Dragon Age Inquisition - Kiriya - Original Flavor [1]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Dragon Age Quest: In Your Heart Shall Burn, F/M, Haven (Dragon Age), Post Haven, Pre-Relationship, Rescue Missions, Worry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-25
Updated: 2015-09-25
Packaged: 2018-04-23 08:36:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4870335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninemoons42/pseuds/ninemoons42
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As Haven falls to the Elder One, Cullen finds something new to believe in, and fights for that faith.</p>
            </blockquote>





	faith

He was running out of breath.

He could feel blood trickling down his side. Errant claws slashing him to the quick. 

Still he waved his sword. Still he found the strength to shout to the soldiers, to the terrified villagers: “Hurry! To the treeline!”

He lent his shoulder to a woman in battered armor until she shook him off: “I can manage, Commander,” she groaned, and he looked briefly after her until some of the other men picked her up and helped carry her away.

How he wanted to turn into the darkness -- those were his soldiers, those were the townspeople, fleeing into the uncertain night, into the snow and the dangers that lay ahead -- but he had to look back and watch. The flash and flare of magic, and the enraged screaming. 

Again his heart leapt into his throat as the Elder One’s dragon circled again for yet another pass at Haven, abandoned now, save for its last defenders.

He strained to hear her voice: Kiriya Trevelyan’s voice.

A high-pitched scream of pure rage! Cullen stepped back, fear and bile clawing at the back of his throat. Was all lost? 

Would _she_ die?

The ground beneath his feet began to tremble, and then to shake. The slowly building rattle and crash of falling rocks. 

That was the trebuchet! He saw the seemingly ponderous movement of its arm, flinging the last shot -- 

More screaming -- and he thought he could hear, over the roars of the dragon, a woman’s voice calling out.

He saw the avalanche begin: snow and rocks and falling trees, the slopes of the mountain coming undone, the great rumbling shriek of everything coming down -- and with trembling hands he reached for the flare in his belt and raised it high. 

Fired.

Light streaked into the sky, a lurid red.

He needed to turn around now.

Haven began to fall, far below, and -- he hoped -- the Elder One’s forces with it -- 

Who was calling his name? Who was shouting at him? 

_“Commander: RUN!”_

Cullen said her name. Once. “Kiriya.”

And he turned, as the rocks around him began to groan and protest, and ran for his life.

“Go, go, _go_ ,” he kept saying, shooing the stragglers onward -- and he could feel the blood pooling in his boot and pushed himself forward, step by miserable step.

There was nothing to see but the avalanche, the one time he looked back.

Leliana’s voice, at last: “Here you are, Commander. We’ve been looking all over for you. You fired that flare not a moment too soon.”

“Hush, he is injured.” Josephine. “We must get him to a healer.”

He pushed their hands away. He could just barely make out the table at which the two had been conferring. “Situation,” he asked, curtly.

Something flashed coldly in Leliana’s eyes and was gone before he could read it. “We are tallying the survivors. It seemed that Trevelyan was able to rescue many of them and send them to us, even with her other tasks.”

Josephine nodded with what seemed like wary approval. “Many of the mages who still have strength have volunteered to heal every soul that they can -- and those with no skill in healing have also pledged their help. They are lighting fires and warming up the soldiers.”

Cullen looked at the snow heaped beneath the table and gritted his teeth against the urge to shiver. 

“Orders,” he made himself say, after a moment. “Someone must watch over us here, and -- as soon as we can -- we must assemble a search party.”

“You want to find Trevelyan,” Leliana said.

“It’s the least we could do for her,” Cullen snapped. “Or are you assuming she’s _dead_ without even looking for a body?”

“Avalanche.”

“Which she could have escaped. If she can escape an explosion, I’d rather expect her to survive _that_.”

“Peace,” Josephine said, “we don’t even know if we’ll survive the night. We need to work together, and not at cross-purposes.”

“She’s right.”

Cullen turned, shocked. 

Such a twist of emotions in Cassandra’s face. Pain, horror, anguish, determination.

The other two burst into questions: “How did you get here?” “Weren’t you with Trevelyan?” “Is the Elder One dead?”

He watched Cassandra raise her hands. “Trevelyan asked me to turn back and find you -- she said she’d not risk losing me when I have been at the forefront of this Inquisition.” A quiet disgusted noise. “Some Inquisition. All it took was an Elder One and -- now we are scattered.”

“You haven’t killed that -- that thing,” Cullen said.

“It fled, and so did its dragon. I do not know how. I parted ways with Trevelyan before she could fire the final shot.”

“The Commander believes she might yet live,” Josephine said.

A shrug. A frown. “If anyone could -- it might be her.” He watched her turn in his direction. “You intend to form a search party.”

Cullen nodded. “I need to rest. But in a few hours -- ”

“I will set out with you. Now go and see a healer, Cullen. I can see the blood on your armor.”

“Seeker,” he said, and limped into the makeshift encampment. Varric passed by, carrying a load of firewood on his shoulder and his crossbow on his back. Further on, and Cullen passed the boy who had been at the gates of Haven -- what was his name? -- as he tended to a handful of patients.

The healer who saw to him shook her head when she saw the wounds in his side, and gave him not just some elfroot but an antidote as well. “I don’t know what kind of poison you could have gotten from those _things_ ,” she said as she wound bandages around his torso. “But it’s better to take something now and not need it. Get some sleep if you can.”

In his dreams Cullen saw Trevelyan walk into an incoming avalanche, never looking back, never coming back.

And he was grateful when Cassandra woke him up. “I have found a few people to come with us. Are you ready?”

“Yes.” Getting up left him only a little light-headed, and there was merely a faint throbbing pain in his side, and he stopped at another healer’s makeshift tent for a string of healing potions before setting out at Cassandra’s side.

Back down the slope and into the snow-covered place where Haven had died, in the remnants of an ill-timed celebration and the devastation of an Elder One’s attack. He shuddered to remember the screaming dragon and the misshapen forms of the demons -- and with them, the monstrous remains of his brother and sister Templars. Twisted hulks of armor and red lyrium, that terrible rancid clawing _pull_ , mindless ferocity -- 

He shook his head to dispel the dark thoughts, and his eyes went up to the peaks looming above: silent now, and complacent, watching impassively over what was no longer there.

Just behind him, Cassandra swore, softly. “She could be _anywhere_. If she even lives.”

Howling wind and drifting snow and the entire mountain before them to search. What hope was there? What were the chances? 

He took a step forward. Another. He had to move forward. He had to believe, because he’d found himself believing in her when she took onto her shoulders the responsibility of the trebuchets -- she’d had a choice, she could have run, she could have refused to do anything. Instead she’d stood still in the Chantry and bowed her head; instead she’d sobbed quietly, just once -- and then she’d turned to him with dry eyes, just for a moment, before she strode out through the doors.

Out into the snow and the worst of the fighting. Out to the dragon and the Elder One.

Now he was walking forward, trying to convince himself that he had hope. Could the Chant soothe him, here? But the words were blown away in the icy winds.

“We can’t go on like this for much longer -- we could get lost ourselves -- ”

He wheeled on Cassandra. “I will search for as long as it takes.”

“You’re not thinking clearly. You are needed by the Inquisition.”

He gritted his teeth and looked away, and scanned the white blankness of the mountain again -- 

Movement. A shadow? He looked up and the sky was clear and serene, as though it had not witnessed a deadly battle. No night-flying birds.

He tried to find the shadow again and -- it was there, still moving, and he caught Cassandra’s arm and pointed. “Do you see that?”

“Something is moving,” she said, after an agonizingly long moment.

“Or someone.”

“We will investigate -- but if it proves to be nothing we _must_ go back to camp. I will not risk your life and the lives of our companions any more than I have to.”

He nodded, once, and hurried forward -- 

Movement. Slow walk. Cullen kept his eyes on the shadow as he forged forward. Snow crunched under his boots and tried to hold him back. One step after another, and the stars poured faint light onto his path -- 

The shadow moved -- and fell.

Cullen closed the distance. The cool glow of green light picked out the details of Kiriya Trevelyan: shredded leathers and sleeves and claw-marks up and down her arms. One of her wicked-looking knives was missing. Blood had frozen and crusted on the backs of her legs.

He fell to his knees and turned her over. Her face masked in blood and bruises, and the faint faint weakening beat of her pulse. 

Sudden panic clutched at him and he wrapped his arms around her, then thought better of it and took off his coat, folding it around her before picking her up. 

Cassandra’s shadow, moving rapidly towards him, and he said, “It’s her -- I found her!”

“Thank the Maker!” was her response, then -- “She’s nearly frozen -- we must get her back to the camp quickly!”

“I can run,” Cullen said. 

Anything, _anything_ , to make sure that the woman in his arms survived. 

He held her tightly and whispered, “ _Live_ , Kiriya,” and began to retrace his footsteps.

**Author's Note:**

> I am also on [tumblr](http://ninemoons42.tumblr.com/) and my Dragon Age: Inquisition blog is [here](http://ninemoons42-inquisition.tumblr.com/).


End file.
